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[Primus of ComStar]

Greetings Mechwarriors,

The purpose of this announcement is to clarify our position on some contentious issues: Exploits and Griefing.

While the developers continue to integrate balances to help prevent these occurrences, we will be stepping up sanctions for players who are found to be engaging in the activities described below.

We would like to remind everyone that our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use apply both in-game and on the forums. It is our right to remove players who, for their own entertainment, intentionally degrade the gaming experience of others.

If you would like to report a player for violations, please submit a ticket to Moderation Support.

When submitting your ticket, if possible - provide a screenshot or video of the transgression in question. Please be sure to provide the following information:
-Time/date (and time zone)
-Map
-Mech used
-List of offending players
It speeds up the process and helps us tremendously!

We follow-up all such cases with an investigation and privately contact the abusive players. Continued abuse results in increasing sanctions being imposed. Please be patient while we investigate each report: we review all cases, and in these situations we will be following-up with users privately. In order to protect user privacy, we will not share the result of your report with anyone.

Do not post grievances on the forums, as this is a violation of our Name & Shame Policy.
Please conduct yourselves accordingly. If you have any questions, please contact one of our Community or Staff Moderators.

Any repeated abuses of the exploits discussed below may result in either a suspension or ban being imposed on the deviant player’s account. We will update this list as needed based on future encounters.

Team Killing Abuse
Team Killing is a deviant result of the Friendly Fire mechanic, which increases the strategic importance of location and coordination in fighting. Accidental Friendly Fire is expected. However, we will not be tolerating players who repeatedly abuse this mechanic to grief their team-mates by killing them. Please refrain from retaliating against somebody who may have accidentally shot you due to a bug or confusion.

Mech Suicide Abuse
Some players have been repeatedly finding ways to destroy their ‘Mechs as quickly as possible.
This behaviour denies an otherwise healthy team of an active member, and makes the battle imbalanced. As such, this is prohibited and includes instances of players intentionally and repeatedly running out of bounds, or into the enemy team without tactical intent, or any other way in which a player has found to be self-destructing their `Mech.

Non-Participation Abuse
If a player has joined a match, they must have launched the game with intent to play. Players who are not moving, or are otherwise not participating in the spirit of the game, fall under this category. While we all understand the call of nature: Repeated abuse of this behaviour, similarly to 'Mech Suicide and Team Killing, results in an unfair advantage for the enemy teams, and is thus not considered acceptable use. Please keep in mind that idling on your cap point without armour or moving does not constitute a form of tactical "Base Defense".

Team Treason
Treasonous provision of information to enemy combatants, also known as "bird-doging" is forbidden. This involves a player using the in-game chat to provide the enemy team with the locations of their own team mates. While we appreciate that some players may wish to have a round end early by calling out the location of an AFK team-mate, the risk that this could be used against an active participant of the match to deny them the use of cover and movement makes this a form of a griefing. You may declare a teammate AFK but not their coordinates or position.

Third-Party Scripts, Hacks, Bots, etc. Abuse
Software that gives players an unfair and undue advantage, or otherwise exploits the game, are strictly prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: Bots generated for running any of the above mentioned forms of griefing/exploits, scripts designed to negatively affect network connectivity, mods affecting the game UI, hacks providing information otherwise unavailable to the player, etc...
Exceptions to this are made on a case by case basis and currently including chat macros and third-party VoIP.

[Primus of ComStar]

Updated to include Team Treason